After So Long, A Sad Update

Hey friends. Carol (my beloved Normal Neighbor to this blog), died on May 1. She had been diagnosed with colon cancer at the start of 2011, and there were lots of ups and downs and calm periods and crises, and finally it was all too much, and there was nothing else to do. I'm breaking my blog silence to tell you about it because today, her mother called me, and I went over to Carol's house, and she gave me my old wig back. It was the wig I wore four years ago and had given to Carol a while ago. But she also gave me another wig Carol got for herself, one I'd gone with her to pick out. So somehow I lent one wig and got two back. She handed me the bag with the wigs, and I looked down inside it, and in that moment, it was just so much living for one day that writing about it really seemed like the only possibility.

Right after we found out her time was short, I talked to her best friend, who had just spent the whole day with her. "How was she?" I asked. I wanted to know if she talked about dying and in what way. The whole three years of her illness and treatment, we never talked about dying and we fully embraced a narrative of cure and healing, that she would do these painful, arduous, or merely pesky things and then finally be free of it all. But with that narrative taken away, I wanted to know how she was facing it. Her friend said, "Oh, we didn't talk about any of that. We talked about normal things. She wants to get the bathroom retiled." We laughed. But I thought, if that were me, I would want to talk about it. I'd want for someone to say, "This is happening and it's real."

When I got to talk to Carol myself, in the midst of her telling me about the hospice facility she would eventually go to, I said, "How did we get here so fast?" And we both started to cry, the first time we ever cried together. Because always before there was a hope, or a meal to organize, or a thing to be done, or something else to be said. But not anymore. And she said, "I know, how?" I said, "I just wanted you to have a good summer." She told me that she didn't want to die at home, because she didn't want the house to be gloomy forever for her kids, and I said that I totally got that. Then we talked about each of her kids and agreed that everything would be okay. And then I was squeezing my face together and trying not to make any noise because I wanted to hear her talk. And she said, "Of course I want more time, but you know...I don't want to just hang around."

The very last time I saw her, she was still at home, and we didn't talk about any of that. I hugged her and sat with her for about five minutes. She was sitting up and dressed, and we chatted about where I was off to next. I don't know, something insignificant. It is a lot harder to think of meaningful things to say than it should be. I think I told her I loved her. Or maybe that had been on the phone. Then a few days later she was sleeping most of the time, and then she was admitted as an inpatient, and then she was gone.

We had a funeral and a gathering of friends and neighbors, which was good and necessary. And now that has been several weeks ago, but I have felt all this time that she was at home around the corner, and we just haven't gotten a chance to catch up. It has been like one of many summers where we're both busy, or in-and-out of town, and we may not be together for a few weeks at a time. I've seen her husband, and her kids, but always with a sense that while Carol is somewhere out of sight on that day, eventually, soon, her absence will be over and we will meet.

Then, today, her mom summoned me to the house, where she's been going through Carol's closet and dealing with her things. Her mother is seventy-five and vigorous, capable, talkative--a big presence. Years ago Carol would sometimes suggest, with good humor, that her mom could be overbearing. But now she is running the house when Carol's husband has to be working. God grant all of us a busy, overbearing grandma to step into the space we leave behind.

So Carol's mom gave me a houseplant and a plastic shopping bag with the two wigs in it, the same shopping bag I'd put my wig in to lend it. And I thought, again, "How did we get here? How did we get here?" I didn't want the wigs at all. Mine, I am sick of looking at and I promise you I would never wear it again, but I bear it no ill will, if that doesn't sound ridiculous. But looking down into the bag and seeing Carol's, I felt such a shock of recognition--like, that's Carol's hair--and it brought her sadness and her vulnerability from that time all back to me. How did we get there? How do we do the things we have to do? How did I get here? And why me and not her?

I took them and thanked her and said that I would either keep them in case someone else needed them, or that I would donate them. "You never know," she said. And I walked home and put the plant in a bigger pot, then I took the wigs out of the bag and shook them out and looked at them, then I put them back into the bag and sat it at the bottom of my staircase. Then I went to Pretty Neighbor's house and drank three beers.

Now, as I have said in this blog so many times, you know everything. If you have read all this then thank you. xoxo

Beckmas

I have a wintry, holidayish Christmas playlist that I've been nurturing along in Spotify for over two years. I've held off listening to it until today so it would be fresh. I wanted to share it with y'all if you are into Spotify.

Bruce Cockburn's version of "Mary Had A Baby" came on just now, and I had a vision of myself sitting in our little apartment in San Jose, the winter I was pregnant with Laura, listening to that song on Napster (yes children!) and rocking in my rocking chair. I remember that particular season, my applications were in for doctoral programs, though I hadn't started yet, and of course I didn't have a baby yet, and we were new in town. I had truly nothing to do. I taught an SAT prep course around the corner. I read a lot, I think. And I don't know what else. I would meet Matt for dinner at the Valley Fair mall. Or I would go there and walk around.

 I wrote about that apartment before, God, that place was a disaster. But we were happy there, it's a good memory. The people keep a comin' but the train done gone.

Anyway, the list has about 4 hours of music on it, which should see you through lots and lots of wassailing.

Really the song that would be most appropriate for memories of that apartment would be James Brown's "Santa Claus, Go Straight To The Ghetto." Also on the list!

Enjoy with love from me!

The Past is Prologue

Hank maintaining a state of readiness.

Tonight at 8pm, Betty loaded the last dishes into the dishwasher as I swept the kitchen. She said, "Well, that's done." I said, "And it only took you all day!" She confirmed that she'd been working in the kitchen since 8am and had only sat down to eat. I slept until ten and had, I will confess, sat periodically throughout the day. But the food was delicious and nicely presented and everyone was happy, and I think, grateful.

Here is the sweet potato and cauliflower au gratin recipe. Although where they say one cup of water and one cup of milk in the sauce, I do two cups of milk. That link goes to the now defunct Whole Living magazine, and they used to try to make everything healthy, so some reverse engineering is required. It was good and it got eaten.

I ate one plateful and had some prosecco and then after dessert, it was like I was struck by lightning. I didn't even think I ate that much, but I had to get horizontal. I went and fell across Betty's bed for an unspecified period of time. Then, because I had read this article yesterday about how a bout of exercise mitigates the effects of overeating and sitting around, Matt and the kids and I went for a brisk walk in the dusk.

As we walked to a nearby playground, I told the kids how, when we were first married, we used to walk along that same street and daydream about having one of the little cottages. We were living in a succession of newlywed apartments in those days, and for us to have a tidy little house together was all I wished for. It's so strange to be taking the same walk with our two huge, very real children. And to realize that those cute bungalows would not fit us these days. Matt remarked how small the houses seem, that he'd never noticed before, and we agreed that we have different eyes now. But how gradual the change! Life, man, the way it just takes you along and over and through things and it just keeps going around and around, and you just never know.

At the park, Matt talked about how much time he'd spent in the field there as a kid, kicking a ball or running around or just doing nothing. Then a barred owl flew over us and sat on a low branch. He looked at us and we looked back. And the sun went down with a bang. Boom, dark.

Then we walked home and settled in for a quiet evening and that's where we are now.

Except now the dog is growling at the cat and Matt is fake cursing at her, like the dad in A Christmas Story.

Good night.

A Price Above Rubies

Rainy Pensacola

Another thing that happened last month while I was not here blogging was that I made a fast trip down to Pensacola, just me. My dear old friend Houston's mother died, suddenly. I've been his friend, and loved his family, since I was Laura's age. I called Betty to come to my house, then I put a dress, a raincoat, and a bottle of wine in my car and went.

It was a very compressed visit, but I got to see them all and be with them a little bit. Back at the house after the visitation, I told them how Houston's mom, Jeanette, had called me one day the summer after I graduated from high school. Houston was gone on to college by then, but she wanted to pick me up and have a girls' day out. She was a proper Southern lady, the real deal, so I knew this called for dressing up, like nearly white-glove level.

So out we went. She took me to lunch and shopping, and bought me a school bag to take to college in the fall. I remember, even with my seventeen year-old sensibilities, feeling special and grateful that she wanted to spend time with me. When she dropped me off that day, she said, "Do me a favor. Do not write me a thank-you note." So I didn't, I took her at her word. But then, when I would look back on that day later, I would think, "Aw, man! I should have written her a thank-you note! It was a test and I failed!" I thought this from about the ages of 22 to 39.

Then, just the other week, but before she died, I was doing something for somebody and I thought something like, "I hope they don't feel like they have to thank me," and I flashed back to that unwritten thank-you note, and I realized that Jeanette really didn't want me to write her a thank-you note. She didn't do it because she wanted to be thanked, she just wanted to do it.

At her funeral, her husband of nearly fifty years read the part of Proverbs about the virtuous woman, and then her children did rise up and call her blessed, and let me tell you, there was not a dry eye in the house.

Houston and both of his sisters spoke about their mom, and something his sister Betsy said has stayed with me. Betsy said that, as a parent, her mother was "easy to please, and hard to disappoint."

As the church people say, when I heard that, I felt convicted. "Hard to disappoint." I'm grappling with what that means. I don't think it means that you don't have expectations, or that you don't discipline and correct, but it seems like something bigger, something more expansive and gracious, something to strive for. To be hard to disappoint. I am thinking on it.

Chime in if that chimes with you.
Love,
Me  

Three Years Away from That

Today I took Laura to a get-together with some of her swim friends at a trampoline park. I took Hank too, and I planted myself on a bench in a central location where he could buzz by every now and then and I could verify that he was still alive.

Another swim mom sat down next to me. I almost never see these women because we all just drop off at practice. There is really no standing around the side of the pool chatting. Too loud and too wet and the kids are too big for that now. We're practically strangers to each other. This lady was wearing a head scarf in a way that pretty clearly said, "I am having or have had chemotherapy."

I am long, long past the time when I needed to talk to everybody about my breast cancer. Not sure I ever really did, actually. But this lady and I chatted, first about swimming, then about child-activity juggling in general, then about tennis, which is always a topic of widespread interest around here. I said, "I had breast cancer three years ago, and I started playing tennis in earnest after I was finished with that."

That opened the door for her to talk about herself and her ongoing treatment and so on, and we talked through the rest of the hour of the kids' jumping time. Part of the time it was like we were two med students presenting a History & Physical to each other. I noticed that she was very, very conversant in cancer treatment--in oncotypes and histology and staging--whereas I was a bit rusty. I told her, "You know, it's hard to understand how, but I actually can't remember some of this." She said that was good to hear. I said, "Believe it or not, a lot of this treatment stuff will come to seem like just a really bad weekend."

I'm almost three years to the day from when I heard that diagnosis on the phone. I would love to think that the three years means I'm safer. Probably I am, a bit. We talked about the fear and dread, the cancer-worry that is now part of normal fabric of everyday life. It hums along at low volume most of the time, with occasional loud blasts of noise. I told her, "The good news is that you get it all back, all the stuff you're losing right now. It comes back." She complimented my long hair, and I said, "Yeah, I should really get it cut, I've made my point, I think."

The funny thing was, about forty-five minutes into this conversation, I'd had enough. There was pleasure in making a human connection and in listening to her share about herself, but then it was like I wanted to push back from the table. I am not at the point where I could, like, help with a support group or do some kind of work with people having cancer treatment. Maybe it's like what peace of mind I have is too lightly held, I don't know.
....

Normal Neighbor's colon cancer is back. Or it never went away? It has been two years since her diagnosis and treatment, and she has been very well during that time. But now it's back, and it's awful. She's having chemo right now, a more intense course. She is dog-sick. Her hair is thinning and I gave her my wig. Remember Codi? I don't know if she will need it, but she wanted to be ready. She came to my house to get it, and it's the only time in all this junk that I've ever seen her shaky and upset. I hugged her and told her that she would still look like herself, no matter what.

Living, man, it is not for the faint of heart. That's all I got.

Four More Years!

On this day I have been blogging for four years. I cannot account for my persistence in this habit. I must really be getting something out of it.

And of course I am! (That was my trademark dry humor that you've come to love! RIGHT?)

Three big somethings come to mind: I have made real friends of people I met entirely on the internet, and I've grown closer to people I already knew because they became readers here; I have learned a ton from the people who comment here, on matters practical and more metamagical; and the third thing is more interior. It's that sometimes, on this blog, I have known the satisfaction of saying something the way I meant to say it. Anyone who writes, even if it's just an email to a friend, knows that that is an elusive butterfly.

I certainly don't achieve it in every post, but it flickers in and out, even if only I can see it. And I get satisfaction from reading back and discovering moments that make me say, "Oh, this is a true record of how I thought about this thing," or, "This is exactly how this was for me."

I don't mean for this to be horn-tooty! I'm just talkin' 'bout Shaft.

By way of anniversary retrospective, here are the posts from the last several months that stick out in my mind. In these posts, in places, I said it the way I hoped to:

Old Picture
The one about the snapshot of my brother, sister, and me. I think about this one still.

He'll Be Here All Week
The one where I took Hank for his five year-old checkup. I'm saving it for his rehearsal dinner.

All Happy Families Are Alike
The one about being with my whole family in the mountains and the group picture and the nightstands left in the Swap Hut. Reading it makes me feel like we're still together. A close second in this regard is Cricket Finger.

Let's Name Numbers
The one about my health insurance clusterfuck. To put it delicately. The comments on this one are invaluable, really.

The Report on That Dildo Party
I read this and still laugh. Read it and you never have to go to one of these parties. And thank you for being a friend.

Lovin'
The one about having The Talk with Laura, sorta.

My memory only goes back to late last summer, apparently. Thank you for indulging me in this look backward. You people are in my head. You're in there when I'm writing, and I'm thinking, "How to tell them this?" It is some of the best fun that can be had.

xoxo

Thursday Night Used To Feel Like Friday Night

Back in the ancient times, when Matt and I both had uninspiring office jobs and no children--this might have been when I worked at the prison and he was cutting grass, or when he worked at the library and I was answering phones, or possibly after we both worked at a health insurance company and I tried to merely look busy all day long--we used to have really warm feelings about Thursday night. It was like a little mini-start to the weekend. He would say, "We only have to go to work one out of the next three days!" And then on Friday we would each walk from our respective offices and have a two-hour lunch somewhere in downtown Chattanooga. And then we would spend the weekend doing nothing. We never had plans. We would drive around. Hike in the Sequatchie Valley. We saw a lot of dollar movies in those days.

Matt sitting through a mediocre movie in the middle of the day because it costs a dollar to see it...that is literally unthinkable to me now. A lost world like Atlantis is lost.

Then, when I left that insurance company job to go back to grad school (not the PhD program, another one but that's a long story), my boss said, with real trepidation in his voice, "Becky, I really want to ask you, are you taking a job with one of our competitors?" Like he was afraid I would carry all the Top Secret info over with me. And I was like, "Dude, you should want me to go take up space at Blue Cross."

All this is to say, Thursday used to feel awesome and like a night to party. And now it is the night when all the sins of the week catch up with me. Do you know what I mean?

The not getting enough sleep hits me hard on this day, as well as whatever other exertions I've got going on. I have played a metric assload of tennis this week. I'm tired.

I got hit in the side of the chin with a tennis ball at practice tonight. Kind of my bottom lip and chin. The lip looks fine, but my jaw and my neck on the opposite side hurts. I think my jaw got a good knock and I must have tensed up my neck. I really should have hit that volley.

It made eating my taco salad for supper less pleasurable. But I still managed to take some nourishment.

And while we were up getting the kids to bed, the dog peed all over the floor. After I bragged about her genius in last night's post!

I still need to make lunches and get Matt to make popcorn so I can assemble fifteen little snack bags of the stuff. I am still Snack Mom.

I guess what all of this means is that everything is great here.

I promise a more substantive post tomorrow or you know, whenever. In the meantime, let us all work to cultivate this attitude:

Good night and good luck.

Permissive

This morning I saw a piece on Jezebel about how parents in Park Slope, Brooklyn are backing a ban on ice cream trucks at their local park because their kids see the trucks and want ice cream. Then the parents say no because of childhood obesity and stuff and then the children cry and everything is ruined. So the solution that some parents, at least, are agitating for is to ban ice cream sales at the playground.

You should go read the piece. Jezebel's take is that banning ice cream trucks is redonk and that these parents need to man the eff up and deal with the kids' whining and wheedling, that it's a parent's job to "deny them, again and again, until they grow up to be people the rest of us can tolerate being around." I have an affinity for this view, which is expressed in Jezebel's signature style. I mean, yes, just because a child gets mad and cries does not mean that there is some problem needing a solution.

But what I thought as I was reading it, though, was, "Geez, buy them an ice cream." Not every day, and NEVER after a fit has been pitched or whining is underway. But lord, that's the time and place for sweets. It's what I think of as a high-impact treat. Lots of bang for the buck. Spend your sugar allowance on ice cream at the park and not fruit loops for breakfast every single day or some other crap loaded with HFCS.

While I was in my active weight loss mode, I formulated a rule for myself (guided by Michael Pollan's Food Rules, which I highly recommend). I wouldn't eat what I thought of as "meaningless bread." You know, bread eaten for no reason and for no occasion, just gluteny carbs. But at someone's birthday party, I would have a piece of cake. Just make it matter. Make it an honest treat that means something.

And ice cream at the park is making it matter.

What do you think?

The other, deeper aspect of this that troubles me is the idea that it's normal for your kids to totally fall apart when they don't get what they want. I swear, after the age of two, this is not the case. They need to be more resilient than that. Part of the trick of this is that you've taught them that whining will never, never work, but for Matt and me, it's also that they DO get what they want a lot. They don't feel that life is an endless series of no's, which means that when the answer is no, you can point to all the yesses, and they know more yesses are in the future.

When my kid got excited about the ice cream truck and asked for a treat, I would say, "Okay." And make it a big occasion! "Yay, ice cream! Which one are you going to get?" Then, later at the grocery store, I would say, "No, you don't need that free cookie they give out at the bakery. You had ice cream, remember?" End of story. 

I think the word "permissive" has taken on some slightly negative freight. But I guess our parenting style is basically permissive. I mean, we have core principles and values about what we think is important, but we lean toward saying yes a lot of the time. When one of our kids does complain about not getting/doing something, we're like, "Dude. Listen to yourself! You don't have a leg to stand on here."

Look for my forthcoming book, Dude, Listen to Yourself: Tactful and Respectful Communications with Children.

I wonder if some of these crying Park Slope kids feel that they are in a pitched battle with their parents over every indulgence, so every bit of anything they think they want has to be Custer's Last Stand, and both parties are stressed out over it.

I mean, we all grew up asking for candy in the checkout line at the store, right? I don't remember our parents being too bothered about saying no. In fact, TRUE STORY: Once when I was four or five, I asked for a little plastic suitcase of candy at the cash register at Ben Franklin. My dad said no, but I picked one up and opened it anyway. He took it from me, paid for it, and then poured the candy in the garbage outside the store. So you know him as the kind and loving Camp Papa in my comments, but he is also the Pourer-Out of Candy. THAT HAPPENED. 

That Lock of Hair

Back last year when I'd started chemotherapy, on the night we cut off most of my hair, I saved a little bit of it. It was my favorite piece, from right in the front. I snipped it off first, saying I'd keep it. Matt questioned me about it at the time. I wish I could remember exactly what he said, but it was something like, "Do you really want to keep that? When enough time has passed for that to be a souvenir, you will have grown new hair." Those weren't quite the words, but that was the gist.

I kept it though. I tucked it in the top of my jewelry box, not in a bag or anything, just lying there. And there it lay. Every day or two, when I lifted up the lid of the box to get a pair of earrings out or something, I would have to poke it aside gently with my fingers so I could find what I needed. After that night, the hair on my head went on and fell right out and then, in time, started growing again, and the seasons went around.

Months turned into a year, and then started rounding on year two, and still that lock of hair was there. A couple of times, I took it out of the box. I would smooth it in my fingers a little and admire its texture and color. I thought, "I need to save this to show my colorist when I get highlights put in my hair again." Then I would remember that my hairstylist has my precise color formula recorded in her little black book, just waiting to be called up. Then I would put the lock of hair back in the jewelry box.

Life continued to happen. I kind of stopped seeing the lock of hair at all. With one hand I would flip up the top of the box, nudge the hair aside, pick up my jewelry, and flick the lid shut again. It grew to be kind of a nuisance having it there, as you can imagine. You need to pick up a pair of little stud earrings and there's, like, some hair in the way.

Just as I ceased really seeing that actual curl of hair, the whole issue of having hair and losing it and regrowing it kind of fell out of my top stories. Like, it wasn't the headline anymore, then it slipped below the fold, then it got buried way, way back on like page E20. Maybe after Lifestyle but before Real Estate. No longer current events, no need to catch anyone up on it.

The other night, at my first book club meeting, there was a girl there who had a kid in the same class as Laura a few years back. We kind of recognized each other, but it took a few minutes to make the connection. She shook her head and said, "Oh, I didn't know it was you! Your hair was really long, right?" I said, "Yes, it was long." She kept on, making a kind of gesture with her hands, as though to indicate big, full hair. She goes, "I mean, it was like, really different!" There was a time in the not even distant past when I would have said, "Yes, I had to have chemotherapy and it all fell out, but it's all fine now," or something like that. But I just repeated, "Yep, it's short now!" And left it there. It is not something I find I need to process in conversation anymore.

This is what I would say to anyone who is facing chemo and the loss of hair, because I know that for many people, this is near the top of the list of their fears. But I would say that, believe it or not, not only will you get through being bald just fine, there will come a day when you don't even really regret that it happened, and you sure won't spend any time thinking about it. That day will come sooner than you think. As hard as it is to imagine when you're just starting down that road, the whole story of going bald and being bald will one day be boring to you. Like, over, done, next topic.

So, that lock of hair. Late last week and into the weekend, Matt was gone to California for work. The day before he was to come back, I wanted to freshen up our little bower for his return, so I decided to clean and organize the bathroom vanity. Because you know how husbands come home from trips and say, "Show me the bathroom sink!" Yeah. I also had a cute pedicure to show him. Like, "Let me see your feet, wife!"

Anyway, I was straightening our stuff and I opened my jewelry box and plucked out the lock of hair. I hadn't really looked at it in a long time, and it just seemed like a relic. Not in the good sense of something precious preserved, but like something that had once seemed important and was now just odd. Is that still lying around? Clutter. I picked up my phone, snapped a picture of it, feeling kind of ridiculous even doing that, and then tucked it down in the bathroom wastebasket.

You always hear personal organization gurus tell you not to hang on to unnecessary things. If it's not useful and it's in the way, get rid of it. If it's sentimental, take a picture of it, then keep the picture and get rid of the thing. So this blog post is my way of doing that.

xoxo
b

My Newest Oldest Thing

My great grandmother's table.

My dad and my Uncle John have taken to making furniture in my uncle's backyard workshop. Or I think they are mostly chatting and drinking beer back there, and sometimes, incidentally, a piece of furniture is produced. They call their venture Mo Goodnuff, Inc, and have gone to great lengths to create promotional materials and an intricate and colorful biography for their founder and guiding figure, that tower of adequacy, Mo Goodnuff.

If you think those two have too much time on their hands, shhh! They give me things!

So the other day I mentioned that I wanted a work table for my office, and Dad pulled his granny's old table out of the garage. It had been gathering dust out there my entire life. The last time I remember seeing it actually being used in our house, I was three or four years old.

Before.

It was in rough shape. The top is over a hundred years old, but the legs, Dad said, are only fifty years old or so. We agreed they should be painted. I love that it isn't a "farmhouse style" table, it is a farmhouse table. His people were farmers and this was their table.

Dad asked what color I thought for the legs and apron, and I said, "Get mom to pick out an antique gray." Some days went by. Then I got a text message with that top picture attached. "I ignored your color preference," it said. "If you don't like it, we'll keep it."

Isn't that service with a smile? He should really be a high-priced design consultant.

But I love the blue! Mom picked two colors from the Eddie Bauer paint line, Ballard Blue and Antique Blue.

Authentically distressed.

I think they just cleaned and polyurethaned the table top, and it came back to life. The planks are cupped, but as Dad said, none of us will look perfect at 110.

I'm thrilled to have it. I just hope Mo Goodnuff delivers for free. From Florida.

Y'all cookin' today?

Smell-O-Vision

Hank had some new playdough the other day, and I sat down at the breakfast table to open it up with him. I opened the first jar and held it up to my nose. I took a sniff, and as I did, I saw a face in my mind. It was as clear as could be, like a picture flashed on a screen. An older, almost elderly lady with white hair in an old-fashioned bouffant style, a smiling face, and crinkly eyes. Who was that? I closed my eyes and sniffed again. Same face in my mind's eye.

I lost track of what Hank was saying for a moment as I thought about that face. I was searching my memory for who that could be, or I don't know how to describe what I was doing. It was that strange mental operation you carry out when you're trying to place someone, a process that seems like feeling around in the dark, but which must have some logic and method that is hidden from us.

Very quickly it came to me that in my Kindergarten class, there had been an assistant teacher, and it was her face I was seeing. I just knew it. Now, I remember my head Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Gainey, very well, even though I was just four years old when I started school. But I swear to you, in thirty-some years I had never thought or remembered that there had been another teacher in the classroom that year. I couldn't remember her name and I can't now, but it was like the memory warmed in my hands and I knew it was right.

I've read here and there about smell being the sense most strongly linked to memory, and especially to long-term emotional memories. Something to do with the olfactory organ being part of the limbic system. I have often had a smell remind me of another time and place, but I have never had an intact, out-of-nowhere, and wholly forgotten memory surface like that.

I've smelled playdough countless times in my life. So what brought up her face right then? Maybe it was the added nudge of sitting down at the table with a little child? I don't know, but it is kind of mysterious and wonderful to me, the way the mind works.

Just the day before, I'd had one of my standard conversations with Laura, along the lines of, "Right now your brother worships you, and when you are both old, he will be your best friend. Daddy and I will be gone and you and Hank will be the only ones who remember each other as children. How you treat him now will matter all your lives. If you are dismissive of him or contemptuous of him on a regular basis, now while he's little and you have all the power, he might not exactly remember later but he will put the feeling in his heart."

Okay it reads a little heavier than it came off. But Hank overheard part of this and said, "What do you mean put feelings in your heart?" So I tried to talk about how we remember and learn from feelings and experiences that happen even when we're just babies. So then the playdough moment happened, and I thought, "Do we really forget anything, or is it all still there in some occult way?"

Anyway, this is fascinating to me. Has something like this happened to you? Tell me. Or write about it on your blog and come tell us so we can go read.

xo
B

We're Calling It "Industrial" Right Now

There is Matt in his basement lair. It is his birthday today. The celebration of this event, however, has to be postponed, as he is too busy today to turn another year older. The guys are burning the midnight oil down there. Week before last, we got the basement to the white box stage that you see here, and then Matt and the boys moved in. They were dying to get out of the little room. So the basement still needs a lot, but Matt said no more until they meet their next deadline. It's working fine for them right now, it's just a little stark. It's a million miles better than it used to be, though. It's like a real place now. There's a there there.

One chilling thing, though, is that in the bathroom down there? The toilet seat is up all the time. And they don't even care. Men.

And there's weird soda in the fridge down there. The other day, Hank wanted to go down and say a quick hello to his daddy. And he was gone a long time. I called down the stairs, "Hank, whatcha doing?" He said, "Nothing!" And then there was a pause in which he apparently decided to be honest. "Drinking a drink called pineapple Fanta!" he crowed, with sugary joy.

So I'm counting calories these days and it's all going great, but tonight I went down there to visit with the boys and try to pump up morale. You know I'm a one-woman USO. But they didn't need my help, they had Mexican takeout and a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Then I got busy chatting and somehow ate a lot of cheese dip. It's a chamber of horrors.

Tomorrow night we're going up to the mountains, and we'll celebrate Matt's birthday (and our anniversary) properly up there. I clearly remember the first week I met Matt. It was his birthday then too, as it was our first week at college. Someone in our dorm gave him a child's toy Sheriff set as a gag, and I volunteered to be handcuffed to him. True fact.

So my August BeckBloPoMo has come to an end! I really, really enjoyed it. I loved sharing stuff with y'all and hearing back from you. Looking at my post count, it's clear I missed a few days in there. Eh, close enough? But I hope y'all have had a good week! I confess, I don't say this often, but I am exhausted. Love y'all, B

Old Picture

My sibs and me in 1984 or 1985, Hurricane Lake, FL

I found this little snapshot about to be thrown away with a pile of things from the basement. It was in a basket, sitting in the sandbox with a lot of other discarded stuff from my childhood room. I noticed the basket had a stack of photos in it. Every other picture was garbage, but this was on the bottom. I hate to think it was almost gone.

I have good relationships with my brother and sister today. We always did, and we are close. But this photo is poignant to me because it reminds me that there was a real, vital time when we all lived together and were growing up together. When I think about us today, I think about our adult relationships, especially with Dave, who was just seven when I went off to college. We are all busy and noisy and verbal when we get together these days. We have finished talking about being children together. There are tons of things to say to each other that have to do with our far-flung adult lives, lots of things we're engaged in, and just catching up on current events takes all our time. But in this picture, we are here together in our first family. It is moving to me. I can see in it that we are our integral selves, the same people we are now, that childhood isn't a waiting room for adulthood. We were David, Amy, and Becky then, if you get what I mean.

I showed this picture to Hank and he recognized me right away. But then he said, "I don't remember this time!" He assumed the little boy in the picture was him, because it does look so dang much like him. It kind of blew his mind. And I never realized how much Amy there is in Laura.

Dad, here is your blog post. He texted me this morning to complain that I hadn't posted late last night as has been my habit in August. I said that I was tired and that nobody was really interested in reading me on the weekend anyway. He replied that perhaps I ought to go out into the garden and eat a worm. See how he is the wind beneath my wings?

I do hope you are having a lovely Saturday.

I Got A Box Full of Letters

Do you know that song by Wilco? It came out the year I got married. It has a verse I think is funny:

I got a lot of your records,
in a separate stack.
There's some things I might like to hear,
But I guess I'll give them back.

That says more about the end of a relationship than entire novels I have read. It's that word "might." Economy of language, friends.

Sunday before last, the kids and I got home from the mountains really late. As late as it was, Matt was down in the basement busily sorting and clearing out so that Larry and Darryl the basement guys could start the next morning. I wanted to just stare into his eyes and feed each other grapes, you know, but he had different ideas. He led me to four cardboard boxes. I tried to pretend I had no idea what he was asking, but his meaning was clear. I recognized the four boxes as things from my old room at my parents' house. Boxes that had come straight to our basement unsorted. Three of them were books, but one was a box full of letters.

Matt wanted me to go through them and decide what to keep and what to chuck, so I did. I was merciless on the books. Then I opened the last box. There were three strata: high school stuff with a little middle school thrown in, letters to and from college friends and boyfriends, and notes and memorabilia from my study-abroad time in Rome. I knew that if I'd had time and a more comfortable place to sit, I could have fallen headlong into a slough of memory and desire. But I was kind of efficient. When I found bits of an old journal, say, I didn't read it so much as take note of its existence and move on. This was all stuff I had wanted to save at one time. Now a good bit of it was garbage. I threw away a bunch of grades and official records/awards type junk. I kept a fair amount of high school writing, my own and others'. I kept anything that had been written by a friend I still have today. So if you are within the sound of my voice right now, and you knew me in high school, there's some poetry of yours that needs analyzing. I threw away my ACT scores but kept my SAT's, figure that one out. I threw away my notes from my Opera class in Rome, I kept the Art History ones.

The absolutely untouchable category was the letters. It's amazing to think now, but in the early nineties, we college kids wrote each other letters. Lots of them. I had a tight-knit circle of friends, and when we were separated by school breaks or study abroad, we wrote. Some long letters, some postcards. Now those letters speak of lazy summers and low-end jobs we had between terms. Who has time to do that anymore? It's odd. I think we had email addresses--I remember the school gave them to us, maybe--but we must not have used them? I know I never in college had a personal computer. Now, by early 1995 when my long-distance courtship with Matt was heating up, we were both on AOL. Then we emailed and IM'd and all the rest. But there are lots of letters between us from before the dawn of email. I felt pleasure pulling them out of the box. Something about that physical, tangible object. It feels like a gift from the letter writer, the letter is a gift to you of the time it took to write and send it.

Of course, at the same time, this is what my dissertation was about: letters and letterness, especially the way a letter's controlling fiction is that it's an intimate, true, "real" piece of the writer's presence. Once, in a class I taught, one of my brilliantest students was musing on the difference, in genre terms, between a letter and a postcard. She said, "It's like a letter presents the person and is all about closeness, and a postcard embraces the distance." And I thought, "I could put down my chalk and leave the room, 'cause they get it."

Anyway, so I was pulling these various letters from various people out of the box and exclaiming over them. I couldn't get into reading them because there were miles to go before we slept, and Matt and I hadn't seen each other in a few days and we had important chatting to chat. So I put them all in a safe keeper pile. I just don't have it in me to throw out someone's personal letter.

Which brings me to the funny thing that happened: down in the box was a pile of letters to an old boyfriend of mine from another old girlfriend of his, somebody before me. I never knew this person or laid eyes on her. There were ten or twelve letters on business-sized stationery. She had beautiful handwriting and she decorated the outside of the envelopes. Again, who has time to do this anymore? Reader, I don't know why I had these. Maybe they were part of some of his belongings that transferred to me somehow? We never lived together so I don't know. I didn't remember them at all. I don't know if I had once read them or not. It seemed an odd thing for me to keep. But there was no way I could throw them away.

So I messaged the old boyfriend on the facebook. We've always been on good terms; we have mutual friends, though it's been ten years since I saw him. I told him, hey, I found these old letters from your old girlfriend X, don't know why I have 'em. Would you like me to send them to you? I didn't want to throw them away, but if you don't want them now, lemme know and I will give them a respectful burial.

And he hasn't written back to me. That was a week and a half ago. I'm kind of surprised I didn't hear right back, one way or the other. He is married now, but I wasn't offering to send him naked pictures of this other girl. So I don't know. Maybe it just seemed like something he didn't really want to deal with? Or didn't want to make a decision about? If he doesn't ask for them (I don't know his address), I really have no reason in the world to keep them, except that it seems utterly impossible to throw out the work of someone's hand like that.

What would you do? What will probably happen is that they'll live in my possession for another fifteen years. And then I will be less sentimental and one day they'll get tossed. Or my heirs will puzzle over who are these people and are these now precious family treasures?

That was a nice night in the basement, even if we weren't feeding each other grapes. I thought about how much I enjoy Matt's company and who he is and our life together, and how sometimes I feel like life is rushing by and there might not be enough time to talk about all the things I want to talk about with him.

It's hilarious that I've had this blog for three years, because in all that box of letters, I didn't read anything that I had written. I put it all aside for some future time when maybe I can stand myself. You know?

Babywatch

Couldn't this be Hank?

My brother David and his wife Katie are having their baby today. Like, she's working on it right now, while I get to sit here drinking coffee and wearing pants. As we say in the South, let's love on her. Go Kate go!

I took a picture of this picture of my brother when I was at my parents' house in Florida this past week. I can't believe how much the little David looks like Hank. I also can't believe that little boy is having his own little boy. It's babies having babies!

The due date was almost two weeks ago, so this wait has given everyone in the family time to get into an utter tizzy. It has invaded our collective dream life. The other day I posted on Katie's facebook wall:

I had a dream in which I was driving you around to yard sales in an attempt to get your labor started. I don't know if that would work, really.

Then Dave texted me:

Had a dream that you were excited about the baby and sorta roughed me up. 

Okay, that was weird. So this baby needs to get here quick, and/or we need a psychoanalyst who can help us sort through our issues.

And then Amy told me, "We're getting a nephew and we never got a nephew at the same time before!" Which I had not thought of. She and I each have a nephew, but it is not the same nephew. This baby boy will be both our nephew and will be auntie double-teamed by us.

The other day on the phone, Katie said she was waiting and trying not to get discouraged, and I thought, "Why would she be discouraged?" Then I remembered, in a flash, how it felt when I was waiting for Hank, who was induced ten days post-date. Have you experienced this? I got to this weird point where it's like I thought the baby would never be born. It was disheartening. It's just a hard time, those last weeks and days. And it turned out he was just lying up in there getting huge. Hank weighed 9.5 pounds. (My midwife was some kind of wizard and we'll leave it at that.)

So I just got back from Florida with the kids late last night, and I'll have more reportage soon, and right now my parents are heading north somewhere on I-95 to go see the baby, and we four are all trying to get out the door to go to the mountains for one last bit of vacation, but I am totally distracted and useless thinking about this baby. Get here, baby!

Will keep you posted. I hope y'all are having a good weekend.

Love,
The World's Worst Blogger

That Is A Certain Kind of Aplomb

We might need cheering up on this gray/rainy/disappointing Friday, so I offer this story:

A few years back, in the summer, I attended an academic conference that lasts a whole week.  Unlike other conferences, it's made up of professional scholars and also interested laypeople.  Usually the thing centers on just one novel.  It's like summer camp for grown-up nerds, really awesome.  I went to this for several years in a row, because the opportunities for hobnobbing, gossiping, and talking books are unparalleled.  Nobody's bed got shortsheeted, that I know of, but there are the usual camp hookups and feuds. There's even a dance, I'm not even kidding. Yet this is serious business. 

That year--I think the book was Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens--the actress Miriam Margolyes was there. You might know her as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter movies.

My favorite role of hers is as old Madam Mingott in Age of Innocence, remember? A very funny lady, but somehow also august.  She'd come because she'd been in the BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit and is interested in literary matters.  She participated in everything and was just one of the gang.

One of the activities planned was a group reading of a mashup of some comic scenes from Dickens. Parts were assigned and people sat in a circle rehearsing together. Everyone was really excited to be reading with such a celebrated actress, and we were giving it our absolute best. There was lots of laughter and merriment.

And then there was a lull, and in that lull, an unmistakable bodily noise. More silence.

Then, Miriam Margolyes spoke up.  In her full, rich, voice, a voice used to commanding an audience, she said:

"It is I who has farted so dreadfully."

And, scene.

Everyone loved her even more after that.  And I still think of it from time to time, about that "dreadfully" and the nearly perfect anapestic rhythm of that line. The woman is a pro.

Who You Gonna Call?

While we were in Chattanooga at Matt's mom's for Thanksgiving, we got a bunch of things down from the attic and unearthed this decades-old Ghostbusters outfit. Matt's grandmother made it for his younger brother Andy.  It came complete with proton pack and ghost trapper thing.  It was like a little Christmas for Hank. He wore the coveralls for two days and ate Thanksgiving dinner in them.

In among the attic stuff were some baby clothes of Laura's that I had given Betty to store when we lived in a tiny apartment.  Two big bins of things that just seemed too good to get rid of at the time.  I sat down to sort through them, and oh, the memories they brought back.  I kept very few things in the end: the little smocked corduroy dress she wore on her first birthday, her first bathing suit, a soft little jacket, and maybe a couple more dresses.

There were no bad memories associated with any of it, so I don't know why it should have made me so sad, those old clothes.  It made me feel that those times are gone and they won't be back.  It isn't like I want another baby, or not really, I just want those babies again.

Back in the summer when my friend Erika was visiting, I gave her a pair of Hank's outgrown sandals to put on her toddler.  Then I forgot I had done it.  The other week she texted me a picture of her little boy's feet in the sandals, and the message said, "Your heart goes on."  I laughed because it was true. I think I must have said something like, "If you can use these, my heart will go on," and she knew what I meant.  Isn't that what we're feeling when we give away a child's hand-me-downs?  If you can see another baby wearing your baby's old clothes, then somehow that past isn't as past.

Here are a few more goofy pics from our Thanksgiving Day.  At dinner I spoke to Hank and Laura and asked them if they would consider staying 4 and 9.  Hank was willing, but Laura said no.  So unobliging.









Hank was busy cutting his roll with his butter knife, and he asked, "When you cut something with a knife, does the sharpness stay in the food?"  I thought that was such a strange question.  It is kind of blowing my mind.  I might not have captured exactly how he worded it, but we knew what he meant.  We reassured him that it was safe to eat his bread.

I hope you all had a nice holiday, if you had one.  Other non-US Anglophone friends, I hope you had a nice Thursday!  xoxo-B

I Went To See A Baby

Babies, who doesn't love 'em? Here is one right now, and this one is fresh and new. He is baby Carter, who is fast becoming one of the most blogged-about babies on the interwebs. (Take that, Marlo! I kid.) Seriously, his mom told me that she was determined to put up a post about him every day for the first week, so she wouldn't forget how he was changing. I am amazed that she's actually getting that done, but other people seem to handle the whole newborn thing better than I did. My hat is off to you, Kelly!

I truly think some people just handle the disruption of a first baby better than others. I would never have predicted that I would be less than good at it, but I must say, it really threw me for a loop, especially the first time. I just remember thinking that everything was different and I was different, and the baby wasn't feeding that well and I was so, so tired. It did not help that, when Laura was born, we were living in a one bedroom apartment in a crap part of downtown San Jose, next door to a meth lab run by a guy we called the Junk Man. The Junk Man got all kinds of late-night shipments, dudes unloading things from pick-up trucks, and sometimes he would stand out in his backyard, which was about six feet away from us, and glare at our windows. I don't know if he was crazy, or if he was the savviest meth lab proprietor in the biz, or both. He was a little bit scary.

And! And the apartment was one of several that had been carved out of an old house. The landlord and lady were named Bernie and Betty, and they were greedy assholes. I say that with utter objectivity. They didn't live there, but they would send around their man-of-all-work to handle things on the property. This guy's name was Alan, and he was a mysterious character. I think he had been in jail. One day he was in our apartment to figure out why all this black junk was coming out of our faucets. Or, more accurately, to try to convince me that black junk wasn't coming out of all the faucets. He had to leave, abruptly, because he had to make it to class. I, trying to make nice with this person who was our only hope of ever getting anything done around the place, said, "You're taking a class? What kind of class?" And he said, "I'm just trying to figure out what went wrong."

Oh.

Since the campus of San Jose State was just down the road, and our bedroom faced the street, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning, we would be entertained by troupes of stumbling, drunken students, living out their loves, cares, and more usually, their disagreements right on our sidewalk. We called them the Fuck You Players, because those words were the concluding lines of most of their performances.

The kitchen had been the back porch of the house until they converted it. And the bathroom was in the kitchen. Ancient nasty plumbing. And a mouse lived there.

Betty and Bernie charged us $1200 a month for this place, after I'd talked them down from $1600. We moved out to Silicon Valley at the height of the real estate boom, and they thought this was a conscionable price. While we were negotiating this rate, Betty told me a long, sad story about how her adult son had gotten lost in the woods around Boulder Creek and frozen to death. That turned out to be a lie, but I think she kind of believed it.

What got me writing about this place? Oh, because this was the home that we brought Laura to from the hospital, and we lived there until she was seven months old. I am grateful that I did not go crazy in that little place. I had a hard time. After Matt had to go back to work, some mornings he would make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and leave it on the kitchen counter, because otherwise I might not eat until he came home. I was not yet good at doing things with one hand, and I didn't know that I could and should put the baby down sometimes.

Somehow it is doing me good to write about that apartment. There is some part of me that still feels tender and sore from how hard those early weeks and months of parenting were. Of course, we were happy too, at the same time.

With Hank, things were much better and I was only weepy and crazy for about three days. I just see people doing the newborn thing serenely and well, and I think, "Wow! Go you!"

Anyway, three things about the two pics at the top of this post:

1. Look how adorable that baby is. Exhibit A, his little nose. Exhibit B, his luxuriant hair.

2. I am wearing the same American Apparel shirt that Woody Harrelson wore for the entire movie Zombieland. It's true.

3. I needs to get my hair did.

I hope you guys are having a happy Saturday.

The Sun Did Not Shine

Except on that rodent, apparently. Hank is home today, but yesterday in school they made groundhog puppets (think tongue depressor sticks and a metric ton of brown construction paper). This morning we were puttering around when he said, "Oh! I have a idea! Why don't you watch the news about a groundhog!" He was so excited. So for the first time in my life, ever, I hastened to the TV on the morning of February 2 to tune in the proceedings in Punxsutawney. Fortunately Al Roker had sent his crack team of correspondents to Gobbler's Knob. We watched as the guys in top hats manhandled Phil, and Hank loved every minute. He turned to me and said, very solemn, "He saw his shadow, Mom." In case I'd missed it. When you're three, I guess everything in the world is new and weird, so sure, a day devoted to this groundhog character, why not?

I love that movie, Groundhog Day. So funny and goodhearted, it is definitely in my top ten. I'm not sure what else is in the top ten. I might put Solaris up there, no kidding. It's a mood piece, people.

I've given a little thought to what days I would want to live over and over. Have you? Certainly the day I got engaged to Matt, when I knew without doubt that large portion of my future happiness was assured, and I felt so relieved. Maybe one of the first days I spent in Italy as a college undergrad. One of the days this Christmas, with all the family together in the mountains. Really, considering we never know what's coming at us next, I would take any ordinary day on repeat.

Other things in this day so far:

Someone please explain to me why it is impossible for us to get our recycling to curb in time for the truck. The garbage and recycling trucks come around Tuesday morning. Why do we not think of this Monday night? Instead I run out there in my Uggs every week at around 9:30. This is on time for the garbage, but not the recycling, though some time they mix it up and come later, and this epistemological gray area leads me to text Normal Neighbor at some point during the afternoon and say, "Did your recycling come?" And she's like, really? I am SO BORED that you're asking me this again. It comes EARLY IN THE MORNING, POTATO HEAD. She's a lot nicer than that though.

I was going to have my first tennis lesson this morning, but it got rained out. Tennis is a big huge thing in the neighborhoods here, and I've always wanted to learn, so I figured that one way to do that would be to join a team. Normal Neighbor is starting a beginner's team, and when we were at a party she asked me if I wanted to play. I said yes. Then she called me a week later and said, "Did you really want to be on the team or were you drunk when you said that?" I was like, honey, I don't know how to take that. Also I've never been so drunk that I agreed to participate in group sports. Except possibly that time Freshman year when we played Red Rover. So I've been thinking that I need to do more things that scare me, and this tennis thing is one of them. I will keep you posted.

If I had this day to do over I would totally make that recycling truck. Have a fun Tuesday, my dears.

In With the New

Staring boldly into 2010. Note the festive holiday garb--you will be seeing more of this sweater vest shortly, I promise.

Goodness, me, look at the time! It's December 31. Anything you still need to do before the end of the year? I was going to take a bunch of stuff to Goodwill, but instead I took Hank to the doctor. He has an ear infection in both ears. His cold was finally going away, very slowly, but then he woke up this morning complaining that his ear hurt. I'm very glad I took him instead of starting into the long weekend with a sick kid. And did you know that the Publix pharmacy gives free oral antibiotics? There's a list of several common drugs that they will give you, up to a 14 day supply. Awesome. It's how the world should be.

I do love New Year's Eve. A long time ago I had the realization that I love this occasion so much because I never have any particular expectations for it. You can celebrate with many other people or just one, and it can be lively or it can be a little solemn. More than Christmas or other holidays, I love hearing people's stories of what they did.

For some reason, one New Year's celebration that is sticking in my mind today is years ago, I can't remember what year it was turning. We were up on the rooftop of the Pickle Barrel in downtown Chattanooga. This must have been in the late 90's because we hadn't moved to California yet. The town fathers had promised a display of "European Style" fireworks--my my how sophisticated!--so we were all up on the roof getting merry. I sat down on a chair that had a puddle of ice water in it. Two people were making out near us. One had yellow hair and one had blue, and Matt leaned over to me and said, "Their baby's hair is going to be a lovely green." At the stroke of twelve the fireworks began. Hmm, we thought. They must be just getting warmed up, because these are rather underwhelming. No big explosions or shapes. Like a slightly less exciting Roman candle, and kind of fizzly. And then they were over and the air smelled like a poot. So for years, in our household, anything that should be cool but kind of sucks is dubbed "European style." Sorry Europe, you are awesome, but what I saw that night from the Pickle Barrel did not do you justice.

I need to scurry to the kitchen and start fixing our New Year's Eve supper. Salmon cakes are a big favorite around here, and I just realized that I could have been calling them "galettes" all this time, thus upping our fancy quotient. Thanks, Mark Bittman. So we're having salmon galettes, y'all! Also champagne, and I am certain, pitchers of our usual cosmo potion as the night wears on.

Happy New Year to you from the Suburban Matron family! Have fun and lemme know what goes down at your place.

Oh, and to quote Garrison Keillor, from his anti-boastful family Christmas letter, "We hope to be able to meet the challenges of the coming year, but we are by no means confident."